TARANTO. The promise comes from Taranto, where the largest steel plant in Europe is located, and it is all in one word: “Relaunch”. The Minister of Business, Adolfo Urso, is convinced of this, as he stopped in the former Ilva at dawn today. First the meeting with workers and unions in a room of the factory, the visit to some warehouses, such as the roofs of the mineral parks, where the raw materials for production are stored, then – again in the morning – the extended summit in the prefecture also to institutions and the economic world where he also announced measures to protect related industries. “Everything will be made safe.” With him, the new extraordinary commissioner of Acciaierie d’Italia, Giancarlo Quaranta.
From the government the commitment to a new impetus for the large factory and the hope of a new “industrial player who bets on the Taranto site to relaunch it and establish it in Italy and Europe”. Words addressed to the blue suits and their union representatives. “It’s not just your challenge, Italian jobs are up for grabs.” The invitation is for maximum collaboration. From everyone: «If we win the Taranto challenge which was the emblem of the country’s environmental and industrial decadence, it means that we succeed in Italy».
In the early hours of the morning there was also a visit to the facilities for Urso. And then, outside, the brief face to face with some workers who reiterated their desperation for a dispute that has been dragging on for years. The biggest concern is the procurement. Many are suffering from salary delays or redundancy payments. “Minister we are without a euro, we are all family men” says a worker. And then another: “Eight governments did nothing, they came to show off.” Someone says that the last salary is in November, “and today we are still hanging by a thread”. Finally, applause for having “kicked out Morselli”. With the company’s entry into extraordinary administration and the appointment of commissioner Quaranta, in fact, the role of the now former managing director of Acciaierie d’Italia, Lucia Morselli, whose work has always been harshly criticized by metalworkers, ceased.
Also from Urso is a passage on the new commissioner: «A person who you have known well for a few decades, who knows perfectly well the entire extraordinary life of this which has long been the most important steel plant in Europe». Only yesterday, Quaranta had met with the unions. Before that, it had been the turn of Confindustria and the Aigi association which brings together related companies, waiting to see their credits repaid. Interlocutions judged positively by the blue suits, to which is added the commitment to avoid the shutdown of the plants. At the moment only blast furnace 4 is in operation.
A timetable for interventions has not yet been established, but the desire to accelerate is certain. Urso explained that we need to relaunch production immediately and then “as we have said and will do, carry out public procedures to allow other investors to really be able to bet on this plant”. For next week he also announces a visit to the other factories in Genoa, Novi Ligure and Racconigi. «We will find the necessary resources for the production relaunch of the site and those connected to it». The government representative is clear and outlines the path to protecting safety at work. «We must reverse course to relaunch and secure the most important steel site in Italy which can once again become the most sustainable site in Europe in the environmentalization phase. We must demonstrate that this is the site of the city and our nation.” Meanwhile, resources are needed for plant maintenance, which will arrive immediately. «With the law decree that we have created, the maintenance workers who have to guarantee safety cannot be laid off. They are the first workers to have to be in the factory.”
In the meantime, according to Urso, steel policy needs to be changed to avoid production in unfair competition. An appeal to the entire EU, otherwise the risk is of “being crushed by those who produce outside Europe without respecting the environmental and social conditions that we rightly want to respect”.
Then the minister moved to the prefecture, where he met among others the president of the Puglia region, Michele Emiliano, the mayor and president of the province of Taranto, Rinaldo Melucci, and the prefect, Paola Dessì. “The State exists.” The business associations present at the table highlighted the needs linked to the accrued credits that must be managed in this phase and to social safety nets. Positive comments from the unions. «An important day with the start of a new path that looks to the future with hope, albeit in the awareness that the problems have not yet been resolved» says the Uilm general secretary, Rocco Palombella, retracing the years of strikes, the garrisons, the numerous meetings with the various governments that have followed one another. Then he says no to the idea of a smaller Ilva, but on the contrary asks for a “fair” Ilva, which can guarantee environmental protection, employment, production and a new relationship with citizens”. For Valerio D’Alò, Fim Cisl national secretary, it is necessary to «resolve those conditions that we have always denounced, namely systems, health and safety and to guarantee the return from layoffs. This is the starting point, now we have to understand how to heal the lacerations left by the previous management.”